Sunday, July 13, 2008

Lives of Presidential Candidates Revealed in Two CNN Documentaries

A pair of new CNN documentaries will examine the lives of the two men contending to be the 44th president of the United States, launching the network’s extensive political convention coverage. Chief national correspondent John King will report on Senator John McCain, and White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux will report on Senator Barack Obama. Both hour-long documentaries debut Wednesday, Aug. 20 at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.; and 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. (ET), respectively. Both documentaries will replay leading up to Election Day.“There is so much you don’t know about these two extraordinary men, and we aim to fill in the gaps,” said Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.S. “Our award-winning documentary makers have joined forces with the Best Political Team on Television to drill deep into the people and experiences that have driven these candidates to be who and where they are today.”

“Suzanne and John bring their thorough knowledge of the candidates to two long-form explorations of who these would-be presidents really are – beyond their legendary biographies. We examine in-depth the moments in their lives that have shaped them so that viewers will have a deeper understanding of them while looking to CNN for comprehensive convention coverage,” said Mark Nelson, vice president and senior executive producer for CNN Productions.

Reporting from Arizona, Washington, D.C., and Vietnam, King reveals McCain’s complexities and analyzes the political challenges that lay before him in the most important campaign of his extraordinary life. Malveaux has been covering extensively the Obama presidential campaign, including traveling to Hawaii, where she’ll report on the senator’s early years. She has interviewed the candidate, his wife and his sister.

CNN Worldwide, a division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company, is the most trusted source for news and information. Its reach extends to nine cable and satellite television networks; one private place-based network; two radio networks; wireless devices around the world; CNN Digital Network, the No. 1 network of news Web sites in the United States; CNN Newsource, the world’s most extensively syndicated news service; and strategic international partnerships within both television and the digital media.